


heart still beating, but it's not working

by swishandflickwit



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 4x09, 4x09 - the fall, Angst, Captain Swan - Freeform, F/M, OUAT - Freeform, Once Upon A Time, cs angst, cs drabble, cs fan fic, cs ff, emma swan - Freeform, fall - Freeform, killian jones - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 21:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2707064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swishandflickwit/pseuds/swishandflickwit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Killian, I’m not a tearful goodbye person,” she says, and for a moment he fears she might not allow him this one chance to say goodbye like circumstance has dealt him so many times before. But she continues with, “but maybe just this once.”</p><p>And then she is grabbing his face and pulling him in for a kiss and he is simply gone.</p><p>4x09 Killian introspection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heart still beating, but it's not working

**Author's Note:**

> I know everyone and their Snow Queen aunt has done this and a part of me is Rebel Wilson in Pitch Perfect during the cat fight screaming: “ENOUGH!!!” complete with arms a flailing but apparently I am a masochist. 
> 
> So. 
> 
> Here.
> 
> Have a drabble thingy.
> 
> Title taken from OneRepublic’s song “Feel Again” which is the song I’m gonna be playing WHEN Killian gets his heart back.

**~oOo~**

“Killian, I’m not a tearful goodbye person,” she says, and for a moment he fears she might not allow him this one chance to say goodbye like circumstance has dealt him so many times before. But she continues with, “but maybe just this once.”

And then she is grabbing his face and pulling him in for a kiss and he is simply gone.

He doesn’t have his heart to begin with, but he has his mind, his body and his soul. Yet when Emma kisses him, a kiss he feels itself searing into all the three parts that are making his being, he just knows…

It doesn’t belong to him anymore. 

So he pours all that he has left into that kiss, what little and wasted it is, wishing that he could tell her what he is truly feeling instead of this enduring hollow ache inside him.

 

_I’m sorry._

_I failed you._

_I just wanted to be better._

_I wanted to be yours._

_I_ am _yours._

_I’m sorry._

And when she breaks the kiss to hug him closer, he pursues a trail of kisses to her wet cheek, her neck and her shoulder, muffling the words that bubble like acid on his tongue, burning to come out but unable to. Instead, he settles for silently breathing the words into her skin with his lips.

 

_You can do this._

_Don’t give up._

_You’re beautiful, Swan,_

_I’m so damn sorry._

The words are bitter and not enough but it will have to do because this is all the time he has left for. 

Their foreheads touch and they take a moment longer to breathe each other in as long as possible before they inevitably have to pull away. 

It’s too soon for him, everything about this is, for while Emma believes they will see each other again the reality is he is on borrowed time. 

So he opens his eyes and looks at her… studies her face for what is most definitely the last time for him and commits ever curve, line and freckle that map her face and tell him her story.

 _So beautiful_ , he thinks again, _and so strong,_ because despite her red-rimmed eyes, the erratic beating of her pulse that he felt when he kissed her neck and her downturned lips, he has never seen her more fierce and brave and powerful as she is now. 

He wishes he was there to watch her, his fearless pirate princess, defeat the Snow Queen but it is his own fault that he can no longer be privy to such events and the tracks of Emma’s tears against his scruffed cheek are a reminder of his mistake to trust the Dark One, leading him to his current predicament. 

 _I’m sorry,_ he tries one more time. _I’m sorry that I am to die without telling you how I truly feel because you deserve to know, lass._ He clenches his jaw. _But not like this._

He tries and he tries to get the words out but he’s long learned that it is an attempt at futility. While his feelings have not completely gone, it has become increasingly difficult to convey his emotions when they are but a dull roar in his chest, akin to a faded photograph in his memory.

But it doesn’t stop him from trying anyway.

 

_I love you._

 

He wants to say.

_I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you._

“Goodbye,” is what comes out.

And he knows his eyes are dimmed and his voice is flat.

But he hopes she hears him anyway.


End file.
